


Dear Steve

by melodiousmadrigals



Series: wondertrev week 2020 [6]
Category: Wonder Woman (Movies - Jenkins)
Genre: (major character REVIVAL), A Little Bit of Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Don't copy to another site, F/M, Letters, Post-Canon, Post-Canon Fix-It, the opposite of major character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:41:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25177831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melodiousmadrigals/pseuds/melodiousmadrigals
Summary: Wondertrev Loveweek Day 6: LettersIn order to improve her English penmanship, Diana starts writing letters, and never really stops.
Relationships: Diana (Wonder Woman)/Steve Trevor
Series: wondertrev week 2020 [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1830868
Comments: 13
Kudos: 70





	Dear Steve

**Author's Note:**

> No beta we die valiantly
> 
> Happy endings only 
> 
> This was my favorite prompt to write because it was one of those rare moments where inspiration struck while motivation was in town! :)

In her first weeks and months in Man's World on her own, Diana encounters a battalion of difficulties underscored by their blatant sexism, the likes of which she'd hardly thought possible. She's a force of nature unto herself, though, and between her own determination and Etta's intervention, she manages to both get a job in the War Department as a translator and let her own apartment, crashing straight through a number of stereotypes and barriers. 

But even as she adjusts, there are still subtle ways she's looked down upon, by everyone from the General that's her boss to the other ladies working as secretaries. (Honestly, that women are willing to put other women down is something she'll never understand.) 

One of those things, small though it may be, is called _penmanship._ Women are apparently expected to have lovely, flourishing strokes in their handwriting, making it an art form unto itself. 

And, well. It's not that Diana _can't_ write—she can. It's just that the only writing she did on Themyscira was in Greek, and it was only during lessons, ones that she often shirked for training. She can read any language, and technically write it, too, but the graphite feels shaky in her hands. She tries to form the words quickly, and they come out readable, but wobbly, childish. Certainly nothing like the nigh-on calligraphy that Marjorie in Logistics produces, or the flowery, slanting script that Major Davies' secretary Ellen achieves. 

Writing in English is like writing with the wrong hand, and even though she does her job impeccably, has the fastest turnaround time of anyone in the department and the broadest linguistic capabilities, she can hear the titters of the secretaries who see her scrawl. 

_Chicken scratch,_ one of them calls it, behind her back. 

It stings more than she'd care to admit, especially growing up in a place where the bonds of sisterhood were considered unbreakable. But Diana is not someone easily deterred, and she simply resolves to do better, to prove them wrong. 

"Darling, they can smash right off," Etta says, when Diana tells her of the incident. "It's not your fault that you didn't attend a preparatory school like the rest of us for your formative education."

"But what did you _do_ to get pretty handwriting?" Diana presses. 

"Lines, mostly. Over and over. Oh, but they were dreadful! And we wrote letters to each other and our families in the country, I suppose. Made them fancy as could be. Really, Diana, don't fret; they're just a bunch of bloody toads." 

Diana smiles tightly, and swallows back all the things she wants to say about sisterhood and being accepted and how England treats its outsiders, the ones who it considers don't belong, like her, with skin just olive enough to garner second glances and accents just pronounced enough to raise eyebrows, let alone women in general. About how lonely it is to work without the camaraderie she's used to, about what belonging means to her. Today, she purses her lips because Etta's heart is in the right place, even though she doesn't really understand. (Diana refuses to lie outright, but she's gotten good at editing herself, even among friends.)

When she returns to her apartment that night, she pulls out a piece of paper and stares blankly at it as her kerosene lamp flickers. Letters, Etta had said. They wrote letters and made them fancy as could be. 

She could write to Sameer or Charlie, maybe, but Sameer is back in Morocco visiting some extended family, and she's not sure of Charlie's permanent address, if he has one. Napi is more all over than anywhere else. 

Besides, there's only one person she really wants to talk to. 

Grief wells up in her throat, not for the first time, and she chokes on it. Breathes deeply, trying to press it down, shove it away for another time because it's not _productive_ right now. It's a battle she doesn't win. 

She picks up her pen, steels herself.

 _Dear Steve,_ she writes, and settles in, pen flying across the page. 

* * *

> _Dear Steve,_
> 
> _All around me are people smiling, cheering, souls lightened by the fact that the War is over, and I—so focused, once, on ending the War, on the belief that one act could make it all go away—feel nothing but lost. It is a sea of people, more than I have ever met in my entire life, and I feel so alone. I do not fit, and I'm not sure I want to, if it means changing the very principles that form the pillars of my identity._
> 
> _I wish you were here. I think you, better than anyone, would understand the tension between finding a place for yourself and not changing so fully that you compromise your identity. I understand now that it is the same line you toed in that meeting with the generals, the ones willing to send men to die as though it was nothing. I do not mean to dwell on regrets, but I regret my harshness, my anger with you that day. (I regret a number of things, where you are concerned.)_
> 
> _You will never believe why I am writing to you now: It is to improve my script, to make it flow easier from my hand, and hopefully make my letters look softer, more beautiful. Making my writing neater does not compromise any moral value that I can think of, so I suspect there is no harm in attempting to assimilate in this way, but neither does it improve me in any tangible way, at least by my own metric._
> 
> _It is all so confusing, and I suspect you would have been excellent at helping me untangle it all. I miss you._
> 
> _Yours,_
> 
> _Diana_

* * *

When she's done, she feels like she can breathe again, like there was an invisible tank tread wrapped around her chest that's loosened considerably. 

Diana stares down at the letter. Her script is still wobbly, but she fancies that by the last few sentences, the pen felt more natural in her hand, at least. On a whim, she dates the letter, folds it, and tucks it into her desk. 

Maybe she'll try again tomorrow. 

*

And she does. 

Night after night, she pours her heart out to Steve, who will never be there to receive the letters. But every time she writes, she feels just a little lighter, so she keeps going. Slowly but surely, writing gets easier, and once it's easier, she can focus more on the form, the shape, the gentle glide of her pen. 

* * *

> _Dear Steve,_
> 
> _Here is my deepest truth: I loved you, too. I love you, and I will never be able to say it aloud. You will never hear the words you deserved to hear, something I grapple with every day._
> 
> _I desperately hope you did not die feeling unloved. I desperately hope that you knew, even though I did not say it back._
> 
> _With all my love,_
> 
> _Diana_

* * *

A year bleeds into two, and suddenly Diana has a life in London. She has her work as Diana Prince, and does what she can behind the scenes as Diana of Themyscira, when the situation calls for it. She goes to suffragette marches with Etta and demands equality, and refuses to change who she is at her core, refuses to become what the world wants her to be. She finds friends, and goes to museums, and sometimes, in the dead of night, goes flying. When Napi is in town, they always catch up; when Sameer moves back to London, they go dancing, and she even accidentally introduces him to Laila, who he'll end up marrying. Charlie doesn't come to London much these days, but Diana makes the trip to Scotland every few months to see him. 

Time cannot heal all wounds, not really, but it can take the edge off of the pain. Steve's absence is a dull ache, a grief that will always sit in her chest, but perhaps not so leaden as it once was. 

* * *

> _...Today Lacey, one of the new secretaries under General Blankenship, complimented me on my penmanship. It is improved, I think, and I can certainly write faster than I could last year at this time. When I admitted how difficult I found it, she said she would never have known that I had not attended a finishing school. She seemed truthful, too, even though it might have been one of those lies people tell to be kind. (I still do not understand that, really—truth is much preferable—but I think I now understand why someone might_ think _it is kinder to lie.) Admittedly, I am pleased at my progress. It seems so trivial, and yet somehow so very indicative of the ways I am managing to slip deeper into this life…_

* * *

In the autumn of 1932, Napi comes to London for a full week. It's a luxury, having a friend so close for so long, one that understands her, knows exactly who she is and what she's capable of. (Etta has long since moved out to the countryside with her family, and Sameer and Laila are in Morocco indefinitely, tending to his ailing mother.) 

At the end of his trip, Napi presents her with a small chest, one she has no idea how he hid, because he brought it from his recent trip to Poland. It's hand carved, and the detail is stunning. 

"I saw this and thought of you." The geometric pattern, she realizes, is reminiscent of star detailing on Antiope's tiara. 

"Thank you, Napi," she says, touched by his kindness. A closer examination reveals that the craftsmanship truly is exquisite. "It is lovely."

Napi smiles, soft, and then gives her a hug before departing. 

For a while, the box sits displayed on an end table in Diana's sitting room. And then, sometime later, the twine holding Steve's letters frays and snaps, and they move to the chest, and the chest moves under Diana's bed, hidden away from the rest of the world. 

* * *

> _..."I can save today. You can save the world," you told me. I wonder if you would look back and think you died in vain. I cannot save the world, Steve. I try and I try, but the human will to do harm is as relentless as the ocean waves, beating on the sand, washing away each and every futile imprint; grinding, even, at the individual grains. I cannot save them. I cannot save them from their own ferocious capacity to terrorize each other. Your belief in me was so acute, but it was misplaced. There might be a way to save the world, Steve, but if there is, it eludes me. Love may well still be the right path, but if that is the case, I do not have enough of it, do not have enough to inspire enough, even. The horrors are too great to stomach, to commit to paper here and now, and as much as it terrifies me that you may have died in vain, at least you do not have to see what the world has become…_

* * *

The thing is, Diana never quite breaks her habit of writing to Steve, even after her penmanship becomes as elegant as the strictest school marm's, fit for corresponding with the upper echelons of society, if she wanted. 

It's something of a balm, going over the events in her life and recounting the things she thinks he'd like to know. She details her failures, sometimes, or the people she's saved, or even sometimes just day-to-day occurrences. She writes her most desperate desires, and tells him all the things she wishes she could say, all the things she never got the chance to tell him. 

She keeps a journal, too, but writing letters to Steve is cathartic, specifically personal in a way that even diary entries are not. Writing to someone, after all, is an intimate act of sharing, rather than simply penning down a recollection for yourself. 

The letters taper off in frequency, as the years drift by, occasionally skipping a few years before picking back up again, and she keeps them all, tucked away in the little box. It follows her with every move, every time she uproots her life yet again. 

Steve, though dead, is a constant, even as she has to start fresh every decade or so. 

* * *

> _Dear Steve,_
> 
> _The years have faded your photograph, but my memory of you remains as crisp as ever._
> 
> _The way you looked at me that night in Veld, the snowflakes clinging to your lashes, with softness and hope and awe. I know because I was looking at you the same. Sometimes in my dreams, I revisit that night: I feel the nip of the cold and hear the strains of the piano, and I plead with myself to hold you closer for another dance._
> 
> _I love you still, and do not think l'll ever stop. It's futile, is it not? To love someone who died so long ago, and yet it's true. Your memory reminds me why I stay, and what humans can be, the resilience of their spirit and the goodness within them._
> 
> _With love,_
> 
> _Diana_

* * *

And then, inexplicably, he comes back. 

Steve, _her Steve,_ back again, living and breathing a hundred years later in what must be some sort of strange, divine twist. 

She spent so long wishing things could have been different, and here he is. Counter-productively, the first thing she does is burst into tears, overwhelmed by this development. He wraps her up in an embrace, and if there'd been any doubt that it is really him, it would be erased—obliterated—because there's no way to replicate the exact _feel_ of him, the exact pressure of his arms and the way they fit together. 

It soothes her enough that she can pull back just enough to place a hand on his cheek and whisper _I love you,_ the words long overdue and begging to be freed from deep within her. 

She's so happy that she feels like she's floating.

* * *

Reality always comes crashing down when you least desire its heavy-handed interference. 

Steve has to relearn the world, so vastly changed from the last time he saw it. It is irony in the extreme as their roles invert, even going so far as to have Diana take Steve to get modern clothes. 

(The Fates always did like their situational poetry.) 

He takes on the challenge with considerable grace and good humor, but Diana can tell how frustrated he gets sometimes, when he can't make the internet work, or he says a word that someone doesn't understand, or he struggles with even the easiest crossword puzzles. 

And then one evening, the setbacks and frustrations and insecurities spill over along with a malfunctioning coffee maker. 

When everything bubbles over, it's not a loud explosion, but a tired one, resigned and defeated. 

"I shouldn't be here," says Steve, softly. 

"Hmm?" she responds absently, fiddling with the machine. Even she has trouble with it sometimes; it's Italian and produces great coffee, but it's ever so finicky.

"Diana," he breathes, helplessly, and the tone of his voice makes her head snap up, coffee maker forgotten. "I'm a man out of time. How can I possibly offer you anything?" 

It's the exhaustion, the frustration talking, it must be, because how could he possibly ask that? She's carried him with her for a century, and having him here is more than she could have ever dreamed. 

She stares at him for a moment, almost uncomprehending as her mind races, before she's hit with stunning clarity. Silently, she crosses the room and pulls the little chest, faded with age but still lovely, from the place where it hides. 

"I think you should have this," she says softly, handing the box to Steve. It didn't occur to her to give it to him sooner, but maybe it should've. 

His brow furrows, and he unlatches it, the confusion rolling off him in waves. 

Inside is the stack of her letters. A hundred years' worth, a hodge-podge of papers—from weighted stationary to lined legal pads to a particularly distinct papyrus sheet she wrote on in a pinch in Egypt—and inks, some faded and yellowed with age, others crisp and white. 

"I don't understand."

She nods encouragingly, and he pulls one out at random. 

_17.04.1975_

_Dear Steve,_

_Today was a victory that I needed so badly. Just this once, everyone lived._

_There was a fire in an apartment building, and I managed to get everyone out, even after the fire department had declared the building structurally unsound, and then managed to get away before a news crew could intervene._

_And then, Etta's granddaughter Marsha had her baby this morning, such a beautiful little baby girl—it made me, ridiculously, think of you and that very first baby I saw in London. It fills my heart with joy to see friends working through milestones in their lives, and simultaneously, it grieves me that I will have to say goodbye so soon to avoid suspicion. (Marsha does not know that I knew her grandmother, of course, and I feel guilty for the lie, but I understand now that's how it has to be. How far I have come from that starry-eyed girl on Themyscira.)_

_Love,_

_Diana_

His eyes flick across the paper once, twice, and then back up to meet hers. 

"And the rest of these—" His voice is low, cracked. 

"All addressed to you," Diana confirms. 

It crosses her mind to feel self-conscious, handing so much of herself over to Steve, but she dismisses it just as quickly. These letters were always meant for him, whether he was there to read them or not. They were the parts of her life she desired so deeply to share, wishing she could talk to him again, and what better way to let him _see_ her than to share all the thoughts she'd once wanted to say? She trusts him with all of it. 

"Diana—"

"You see, my love," she says, eyes glistening with tears that threaten to fall, "you are enough. Just you."

Steve stares at the box, overcome, and when he opens his mouth to say something, nothing comes out. He swallows thickly, then nods once, jerkily. 

"If you want to talk about any of the letters, I will be in the next room." Diana presses a gentle kiss to his cheek, and steps out, leaving him to process. 

*

It's the deepest part of the night when Diana feels the bed dip behind her to make way for Steve. He slides under the covers and presses a kiss to her shoulder, and she can _feel,_ instinctively, that he has a calmer energy around him. 

"I still don't know that I'm worth all this, that I deserve you," he whispers, and she's not sure if she's meant to hear it or if it is simply a confession into the æther. Either way, she's not going to let him get away with it, and rolls over to face him. (After all, she's spent far too long not being able to look at his face.) 

"People are not objects to be _deserved,_ " Diana answers, a certain deliberateness to her words. "We choose each other. I choose you, and I hope you will choose me too. But even if people could be measured by some metric of deserve, I knew someone once who very aptly told me that it's _not_ about what you deserve, but what you believe. Believe in me. Believe in _us._ " 

"I'll choose you every time, you have to know that." His voice is low and pleading, and she does believe him. 

Their eyes meet, and even in the darkness, she can see the swirling emotions, the sincerity etched within them, the depth of his love. 

The kiss that follows is soft, intimate, hopeful, a prayer and a promise all of its own. 

In the morning, they can discuss it all, but for now, there is a simple magic to existing in the same space.

* * *

Every day at 15:00 sharp, Diana's secretary delivers a stack of mail to her office. The last five years have seen the daily pile decrease dramatically as things become increasingly electronic, but there are usually at least a few missives per day. Today Diana's expecting, at the very least, a hard copy of an invoice. It's there, as is an invitation to a benefit gala that she'll have to attend. Under that, however, is a creamy envelope addressed to her with no return postmark. 

Frowning slightly, she slits the envelope and pulls out the contents, unfolding it carefully. 

_Dear Diana,_ it reads, in a tight, measured scrawl, unfurling across the page. She knows this handwriting, spent years looking at it on the back of an old photograph, in a small leatherbound notebook serving as a mission log, as a battle plan dashed haphazardly across an old telegram, the only bit of spare parchment on hand at the time.

Joy ignites within her, warm and glowing and soft, spreading with each word. 

Diana smiles, incandescent. 

* * *

> _Dear Diana,_
> 
> _If you spent a hundred years missing me, I spent a hundred years dreaming of you, of us, of what we might have been. Now I don't have to dream of what we could be, because I get to live what we are, get to see what we become, together. Time may be fleeting and capricious, but it is a precious thing and I intend to make the very most of it, wring every bit from it that fate will allow._
> 
> _I love you. I loved you then and I love you now, with the sort of deep yearning the poets talk about, the kind that aches in its intensity if you think about it too hard._
> 
> _I don't have a hundred years of love letters to give you, but I can probably manage sixty or so, if you're a little patient with me and willing to accept them in intervals, rather than one lump-sum delivery._
> 
> _All my love,_
> 
> _Steve_

**Author's Note:**

> Crosswords apparently date back to at least 1913, and I think Steve totally did them when he had access, simply because I am mildly addicted to crosswords. 
> 
> Thanks for reading! Like most other authors out there, comments/kudos make my day!


End file.
